Blufferitis

So often the truth really is better than fiction.  Or if not "better," at least full of coincidences, ironies and unlikelihoods that, were they to appear in a novel, would have savvy readers rolling their eyes with good reason.

While I must resist the urge to spend too much time here writing about Max, since I'm well aware that my two year old is fascinating to exactly 6 people on the planet, I can't resist sharing the ending to the story about his twitchy eyes; it's just too good.

Upon his pediatrician's suggestion, we took him to an opthamologist.  "If the opthamologist doesn't find anything," she said, "then you'll go to a neurologist."  She gave me a list of things that pediatric neurologists treat, including tumors and Tourettes. 

Coke bottle lensed eyeglasses suddenly seemed like something to hope for.

But it turns out that he doesn't need glasses.  What he has--probably--is a mild case of blufferitis. 

This, according to the opthamologist, who was sweet but didn't seem to have a sense of humor, is a build-up of dust in the eyelashes.  I guess "bluffer" is the Latin root for eyelash.  Who knew?  The "disease" is treated with a washcloth.  ie: wash the kid's damn face.  But lest we seem slovenly, she assured us that there wasn't too much build-up. 

"He might just be copying other kids in his class," she said.  "If they're blinking too."

"You mean he's bluffing," we joked, but she just squinted at us--not unlike Max.  "Get it?"

She smiled wanly.  Maybe she got it and didn't think it was all that funny.  And it is pretty corny.

Still, blufferitis is the perfect affliction for the child of a fiction writer who more or less had to become one because she couldn't resist bending the truth, to make a better story.  But not here, of course.